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This section was my workspace for philosophy essays between July 2006 and April 2008.
I call this "Prehistoric Kilroy" because it gave me practice for more
disciplined essays in Kilroy Cafe.Also see my philophical blog and Twitter feed.

Metaphorical Expression

The world is full of boring home videos, mediocre
photo albums and tedious letters home about people's
dull little lives.

What is the remedy for this? Metaphor.

Whatever your medium may bewriting,
photography, paintings, videos, movies, music,
talkyour best defense against boredom
is to express yourself in metaphors. That is, you need to
convey your message in symbolic terms, using some
indirect detail or reference.

For example, instead of saying, "I love you,"
which has been rather overused, you could say, "My
love is (like) a red, red rose." Unfortunately,
that has also been overused, but it give you an idea
what I am talking about: Instead of trying to talk
about your love directly, you can let another
object symbolize your lovea roseand
talk about that instead.

A better metaphor is something fresh that hasn't
been used before, preferably something with an
unexpected twist.

"My love's just bustin' at the seams, Honey!"

Now that's more interesting.

What makes most family photos and home videos so
dull is that they just capture the scene, as it
is, without trying to find the metaphor. The
event you are recording may have great
significance to you at the timea wedding,
baby's first stepsbut none of that meaning is going
to be conveyed in the final product unless you
deliberately put it there.

Here is an example of a metaphorical photo that I
took a couple weeks ago....

I have never met the girl in the photo, and I don't
know what she is really thinking, but the photo conveys a
certain metaphorical impression about her state of
mind. She appears sad, lonely and pensive, and we
feel sad for her just looking at the photo.

In this case, drops of water are standing in for
her state of mind. I think this photo has
depth because it is not saying something directly,
only implying it. We associate drops of water with
teardrops. She is living, it seems, in a whole
world of them.

On the surface, it is a poor photo. The girl is
out of focus, so we have very little information
about her. Only a few raindrops are in focus,
which doesn't improve the data content. We have no
frame of reference to know where this girl is or
what her problems are.
Yet, it is a powerful photo.

This example illustrates my six elements for
compelling artwork in any medium. (At least six
are all I can think of right now.)

Be metaphorical.

Be ironic.

Be existential.

Record a unique and irreproducible event

Show both motion and emotion.

Remove distractions.

By metaphorical, I mean you should try to find
a symbolic way of saying things. This shouldn't
be forced. The symbols already exist in the
environment around you; you just have to find
them. (In this photo, raindrops are a symbol for
the girl's state of mind.)

Ironic means that you should try to say the
opposite of what would normally be expected in a
situation like this. Irony creates tension and
interest that give life to an artwork. (In the
photo, I think an irony exists between the
bright and cheerful colors of the scene and
the girl's dark state of mind.)

Existential means that you should try to
find some universal human emotion that every
viewer is going to have some experience with.
(Sadness is something we can all identify with.)

A unique and irreproducible event is a
time and place in history that will never happen
again. This is a hard to explain, but I
believe that every photo, essay, song or video
should be the product of a unique set of
circumstances. This photo appears to contradict
that rule, because it looks to you like a generic
girl surrounded by generic raindrops. I guess
what I mean is that there is no way in the world I
could ever reproduce this photo even if I wanted
to. It is the product of a unique confluence of
eventsincluding my presence with a
camerathat is never going to happen
again.

I guess another way of stating this is, "Be
candid." If an advertizing designer liked this
photo, he might try to reproduce it by hiring a
model, creating a colored backdrop and then
generating raindrops in the studio. None of those
photos, I think, would match this one. Once you
start trying to reproduce something that has been
done before, you lose the magic of uniqueness, and
your product inevitably suffers.

Motion and emotion means that there must be
evidence both of physical motion (the raindrops) and
some kind of human feeling. Here is an example of
a photo with both motion and emotion...

A still photo doesn't move, but the best photos
always create an illusion of movement, by body
language or whatever. In the photo above, the
illusion of motion is created by all of the heads
leaning forward toward the speaker. The emotion
is in the intend expressions on the listeners'
faces and the "explaining face" of the speaker.

In the photo of the girl and
the water drops, there is both
physical motion (the water) and character emotion
(sadness). Sometime even stillness itself is a
form of motion, if the photo makes the stillness
clear. Both motion and emotion have to be present
for a perfect work. (In a linear work, like a
song, there is a change in the listener between
the beginning and the end.)

Remove distractions means that you should
crop or otherwise edit your product to remove
things that distract from your central metaphor.
For example, the original image that appeared in
my camera was this one...

The photo was taken in the Rose Garden at
Exposition Park in Los Angeles
(full
album).
Note that the raw picture seems quite boring at
first glance, and most family photographers would
have probably discarded it. Taking the photo was
only half of the journey. The other half was
detecting the metaphor and pulling it to the
surface.

The same techniques can be applied to any artform
and even to your day-to-day interactions with
others: metaphor, irony, existentialism,
uniqueness, motion/emotion and editing.

In my writing, I use the same principles: Express
ideas with colorful metaphors. Say the opposite of
what is expected. Try to capture a universal human
experience. Express a unique moment in history.
Show movement and feeling. Edit out all distractions.

Here is an example from a newsletter
I published last week, describing a certain
government bureaucrat...

Staff knows already that "Yes, Mr. Morton," is the
only acceptable answer. Any other response gets
you the cute little Elmer-Fudd-blowing-his-top
thing, where the head turns beet-red and smoke
blows out the ears.

I could have said, "Any other response makes him
angry," but that would have been boring. "Angry"
got replaced by an absurd metaphorical image that
couldn't possibly be "real" but that conveyed a
lot of complex feeling. No real human has smoke
blowing out of their ears, yet no one who knows
the subject would say that I am lying. I am using
a metaphor, and the end result is something much
more powerful than any adjective.

The irony is that I am taking someone in a
prestigious government position and equating them with
a diminuitive cartoon character. Everyone loves
irony, especially when the rich or powerful who
have crafted an invincible image are shown to have
human weaknesses. Irony is probably my single
most important weapon as a writer. No matter what
subject I am writing about, I am going to try to
find some element that is counterintuitive. Once
I do, then the writing just flows naturally.

The existential element of the quote is that I am
describing anger, a universal human emotion. I
didn't even have to say "anger" for you to know
what I mean. We have all seen it and experienced
it.

The unique time and place applies to the whole
newsletter. I am not trying to write a universal
treatise on child welfare; I am responding to a
unique set of circumstances that will never happen
again in history. The newsletter, like a good
photo, is a time capsule that captures a moment.
No treatise I could write can ever be as powerful
as something that thoroughly occupies its place
and time.

My own emotions are clearly expressed in the
quote: I am rueful of my opponent. I have a
political agenda, which implies movement. The
motion is the smoke blowing out the earts.
Whatever can be said, things are not remaining static.

The removal of distractions lies in the editing.
As I wrote the newsletter, one paragraph after
another was discarded because it got in the way.
In the quote above, I could have said a lot more
about the subject's temper tantrums, but the
additional information would have probably
distracted from the central metaphor of the guy
blowing his top.

In both the photograph of the girl and the quote
above, there is some artifice and deception going on.
I don't know if the girl was really sad, and my
disadvantaged political opponent doesn't have much
defense against my Elmer Fudd metaphor. I guess
the mark of a good artist or journalist is not
just to produce these metaphorical and ironic
works but to make sure they are valid.

I hope that my attack on my political opponent is
actually a valid reflection of his personality and
an honorable way to achieve my goals. I want my
art to reflect reality.

In the girl's case, I don't know if art matches
reality, because I never talked to her. What I
want instead is for the scene to be
genuine, at least in some internal way. As my
chosen policy, I may crop and rotate the scene and
perhaps fine-tune the color, but I won't mess with
the details of the scene, as in Photoshop. It is
important to me that the photo be real (and my
writing be non-fiction), only because when you
digress into any kind of fantasy, you lose your
natural boundaries.

I contend that the same principles apply to
every artform. For example...

VIDEO: I haven't done much with video, but I imagine that
the same principles hold. When you go to the zoo,
the worst thing you can do is try to record the
scene "as it is." Instead, you should look for
metaphors. The best opportunity you have at the
zoo is to see animals as stand-ins for people.

SONGS: The best popular songsthe ones that always
stick with youare metaphors for something else.
"Desperado",
by the Eagles is a good example. Sometimes you
don't even know what the metaphor is referring to,
but it is still powerful: "Take
me to the River" by the Talking Heads. The
worst songs are the ones that simply state things,
without the veil of metaphor.

Reader Comments

“thanks for the creative side of the research”
—Lamia Allani 5/14/07 (rating=4)

“Thank you, thank you! This is so helpful because it inspires me to use build upon my skills as a consultant and presenter on issues related to child welfare practice improvement areas. This is a great tool to help trainees' get in touch with their human nature side of engaging families and to force them into doing some self-awareness of their own skills and perspectives.”
—Family Engagement Specialist in New York 3/1/08 (rating=5)